Dispatches from Spain: La Eriza

{Today we welcome a new regular contributor to the blog, from Spain, Serena Olivieri. Serena is an Italian girl living in Madrid and is a designer and maker of contemporary handmade works. She will be featuring shops, designers, artists, etc out of her beautiful home of Spain! Here's her first post - please help me welcoming her! -Jan }

I was always attracted to this lab-shop from the very first year I came to live here in Madrid. It’s located in a small street in the well known bohemia neighborhood of Malasaña.

La Eriza is a bookbinder lab with a wide exhibition space in the front. It’s the typical place you may want to enter just to take a look at the drawings and illustrations hanging on the yellow/black painted walls or the books in the display cabinets. You soon notice sea urchins everywhere on the shelves: they’re the logo of the shop and give it its name.

It has this feeling of an old wunderkammer; all the objects and paraphernalia in the cabinets are the owner’s personal collection. Óscar Sanchez Lozano is an expert bookbinder and a delicate curator: he constantly organizes solo/collective exhibitions in this space. Young artists, illustrators, as long as there's paper involved and a good project to display, he’s likely to give total freedom to the artists.

I was allowed to take some pictures of the lab in the back of the shop, and here I am, sharing them with you. From book restoration to limited editions to custom cases, as an artisan he covers everything related to bookbinding. Clients usually know Oscar's work and trust it. Oscar admits that his clients are often aware of the high quality of his work and can therefore trust his judgement with their projects.

Isn’t there some kind of magic about this lab? Or possibly, any lab?! There is always a good excuse to stop here and start mulling over every detail and see what’s going on!